Sony plans to make vinyl records again • Hacker News Board

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#111

Post by amelius » Fri, Jun 30, 2017, 3:31 PM UTC

danielbln wrote: post #95

What I love about Vinyl, compared to everything else, is that it's amazingly low-tech. You can build a playback device out of a sheet of paper and a needle. It won't sound great, but it will work. On the flip side, in order to build a play back device for MP3 or CD from scratch you'll need electricity, massive amounts of highly specialised knowledge and realistically a chip fab. This has no real practical relevance i…

Perhaps a nice challenge for a home project: to build a CD player from discrete components (not ICs).

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#112

Post by jballanc » Fri, Jun 30, 2017, 3:33 PM UTC

eterm wrote: post #33

kristiandupont wrote: post #11

I confess, I am part of this trend. And I just got into it, so I get no "before it was cool"-claim to fame. Not sure where that leaves me on the hipster-scale. Buying CD's used to be a weekly ritual for me and I missed it for years. Putting on a new album on a Saturday afternoon with a beer or glass of wine while I start cooking is a very enjoyable moment for me. Now, obviously this was for the most part because I wo…

But why buy vinyl instead of buying CDs? I understand your point about listening to a whole album being preferable to singles, I feel the same way but I'd still much rather listen to a CD than an LP.

Not sure if this is still the case, but 10-15 years ago most vinyl albums were mastered separately from CDs. CDs were subject to the horrors of the loudness wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war . So, in many cases, the vinyl actually does sound better, but not (directly) because of any difference in technology, just a difference in how the medium was processed.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#113

Post by mercurysmessage » Fri, Jun 30, 2017, 3:34 PM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #97

intopieces wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Apple Music do the same? Apple has been more privacy-focussed than other companies, or at least has tried hard to portray themselves that way.

Does Apple Music do the same? If they do, I'm having a hard time figuring out where I'd see it. There are no ads on Apple Music, at all, AFAICT. So to answer your question directly, I'm going with "no".

Apple Music doesn't have a free version, at all, either. Spotify only has ads for the free version.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#114

Post by amelius » Fri, Jun 30, 2017, 3:34 PM UTC

OberstKrueger wrote: post #61

afandian wrote: post #38

If you think this direction is bizarre, consider the 'cutting edge'. In the 21st century my 'CD player' (Spotify) is tracking everything I listen to so they can sell the data to a company who will build a comprehensive psychological profile about me and try to influence where I spend my money (or worse, which way I vote). This tweet specifically was bare-faced about it and appeared to be saying "our users are fine wi…

Theres a middle-ground though that doesn't require you to go back to analogue listening from decades past. Use something like iTunes or whatever other equivalent application with your own music. If you're not comfortable with possible tracking from digital downloads, you can still rip CDs to it. Seems more convenient than going back to LPs and all of the physical management that that entails.

And you think that Apple can't detect which CDs you ripped?

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#115

Post by danmaz74 » Fri, Jun 30, 2017, 3:35 PM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #98

eterm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why buy vinyl instead of buying CDs? I understand your point about listening to a whole album being preferable to singles, I feel the same way but I'd still much rather listen to a CD than an LP.

The problems I have with CD's that I don't with Vinyl: - CD's scratch and then skip easily - CD's come in horrible plastic covers that break if you look at them wrong. - Skipping to a certain part of a song is much more difficult with CD's. - The benefits vinyl provides (large artwork and liner notes/ lyrics, posters etc.) don't all apply to CD's and at that point there's not much/any benefit CD's have over digital.

> - Skipping to a certain part of a song is much more difficult with CD's.

Are you serious?

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#116

Post by Declanomous » Fri, Jun 30, 2017, 3:35 PM UTC

cr1895 wrote: post #56

eterm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why buy vinyl instead of buying CDs? I understand your point about listening to a whole album being preferable to singles, I feel the same way but I'd still much rather listen to a CD than an LP.

12" x 12" artwork/inserts/posters/etc. vs. a small CD box. Many of the records I own are beautifully printed and satisfying to hold. Can be super informative too, with inserts/booklets (of course CDs can also have this info, but often not as nice). Analog is neat. To me, at least. There's a microscopic groove cut into some plastic in which a tiny chunk of diamond connected to a cantilever is pulled through, and the m…

I don't care at all for the act of playing vinyl, but I really love the artwork. I occasionally buy records just for the art. I wish they sold the art separately because it's kind of ludicrous to spend all that money for something that is kind of incidental to the actual product.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#117

Post by amelius » Fri, Jun 30, 2017, 3:39 PM UTC

There's a lot of music that isn't even available anymore in any formats other than digital.

It would be cool if there was a service where one can "burn" (or press) a vinyl record from a bunch of mp3/wav files, and print a nice sleeve.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#118

Post by gjem97 » Fri, Jun 30, 2017, 3:40 PM UTC

intopieces wrote: post #92

gjem97 wrote: post #41

It always makes me cringe when people say that records "sound better". Here's my unsolicited theory on why vinyl was preferred (by some) to CDs in the 90s and 00s. It wasn't the form factor, it was the dynamic range of the masters. I don't know if it was caused by the advent of digital recording, but the loudness war [1] certainly got going around the time that CDs were becoming popular. So comparing a classic vinyl…

If this topic interests you, I highly recommend the book "MP3: The Meaning of a Format" by Jonathan Sterne [0]. He tracks, among other things, the rise of the MP3, loudness, and studies in sound preference that point to how music got to be mastered the way it is. One interesting bit is that compression to 128kbps MP3 had a large influence in an entire generation's perception of quality. He cites a study that found ty…

> tthe perception of sound quality is highly influenced by things like ritual, genre, equipment, environment, age... as well as technical limitations that impose a particular sound on an entire generation of listeners.

Yeah, I guess my comments are driven by a desire for an objective concept of "better". Perceived quality is clearly also an important consideration.

Book ordered, thanks! (Real books are clearly better than eBooks).

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#119

Post by alex_hitchins » Fri, Jun 30, 2017, 3:42 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #117

There's a lot of music that isn't even available anymore in any formats other than digital. It would be cool if there was a service where one can "burn" (or press) a vinyl record from a bunch of mp3/wav files, and print a nice sleeve.

I had been thinking of a similar sort of product offering. If anyone knows about about record presses and is interested in ideas, please get in touch.

Re: Sony plans to make vinyl records again

#120

Post by dungle6 » Fri, Jun 30, 2017, 3:43 PM UTC

danielbln wrote: post #95

What I love about Vinyl, compared to everything else, is that it's amazingly low-tech. You can build a playback device out of a sheet of paper and a needle. It won't sound great, but it will work. On the flip side, in order to build a play back device for MP3 or CD from scratch you'll need electricity, massive amounts of highly specialised knowledge and realistically a chip fab. This has no real practical relevance i…

> out of a sheet of paper and a needle

Don't do this with any vinyl you care about. It will destroy it pretty good. Microgroove records since the 50s were made for a fine tipped stylus, not a needle.